66 



KNOWLEDGE 



[March 2, 1891. 



They are only doubtfully traceable in S Antlia?, notwith- 

 standing the extreme swiftness of its revolutions. Mr. 

 Yendell's provisional light-curve for the latter star, shown 

 in Figure 3, regains its original level with scarcely percep- 

 tible retardation. Professor Paul, of Washington, the 

 discoverer of this stellar prodigy, refrains for the present 

 fi-om pronouncing upon the reality of its suspected 

 anomalies. Indications were, however, caught by him of 

 a lagging after minimum, in the manner of U Ophiuchi 

 and S Cancri, and he also records his impression of con- 

 siderable inequalities both in the duration and intensity of 

 its separate phases, a long, shallow curve occasionally 

 replacing an undulation of wider amplitude and quicker 

 accomplishment,* while both the loss and the gain of 

 brightness appeared to i^roceed by accesses, rather than by 

 an equable flow {Astronomical Journal, Nos. 21.5, 234). 



The period of this star is by far the shortest known, 

 either for a binary or a variable. According to Mr. 

 Chandler, it retains its maximum brightness of G'7 magni- 

 tude during 4h. 30m., sinks in about Ih. 40m. to 7-3 

 magnitude, and recovers with nearly equal rapidity ; the 

 whole period being of 7h. 46m. 48s. (Astronomical Journal, 

 No. 218). Mr. Yendell's determinations, on the other 

 hand, assign .5h. 10m. to the phases ; but an eclipse 

 extending over more than half the period of revolution is 

 a manifest absurdity, only to be got rid of by doubling 

 the latter, t and assuming the occurrence in each circuit of 

 two mutual eclipses by equally bright stars. The reduc- 

 tion of light by about one-half at each obscuration renders 

 this a plausible expedient, the adoption of which in nature 

 can be tested by spectrographic means. A more powerful 

 telescope than that at present in use at Potsdam would, 

 however, be required to disclose the periodical doubling of 

 spectral lines due to the possibly two-fold origin of the 

 light we receive from S Antlise. 



A system is at any rate here presented to our considera- 

 tion such as the boldest imagination could not beforehand 

 have conceived. Even with a doubled period, the occult- 

 ing twin-suns must revolve (if the data suppHed by Mr. 

 Yendell be accepted without modification) in so narrow an 

 orbit relatively to their bulk, that the distance from sur- 

 face to surface amounts to no more than yLt_ of the dis- 

 tance from centre to centre. By reducing the time of 

 light-change in accordance with Mr. Chandler's observa- 

 tions, a free space would be aflbrded of still much less 

 than half the orbital span. The subsistence of such an 

 arrangement cannot easily be reconciled with known 

 mechanical laws ; yet it seems undeniable. 



NOTES FROM CAMBRIDGE. 



■ By E. B. Johnson. 

 ANATOMY IN THE OLDEN DAYS. 



THE turbulence natural to medical students and 

 the popularity of Professors Macalister and 

 Humphry combined to transform the new anato- 

 mical lecture-room into a scene of loul-voiced and 

 inspiriting enthusiasm at Professor Macalister's 

 opening lecture. He was commemorating the comple- 

 tion of the new buildings by giving a resume of anato- 

 mical teaching in Cambridge from the days of the 

 medieval stwlium ijcncralc to the present time of elaborate 

 sub-division. 



• The well-known correlation of short with sharp sun-spot maxima 

 offers a curious analogy with these significant indications.' 



t As suggested by Mr. Backhouse in the Oliservatmy for October 

 1890. " 



The earliest record of a school of Physics at the 

 University is in 1421, but the first definite provision for 

 anatomical teaching was made by John Caius somewhat 

 later in the same century. He was followed by W. Hardy 

 in the sixteenth and by a brilliant galaxy of anatomists in 

 the seventeenth centuries, of whom one instructed New- 

 ton, and another tried his hand at writing plays. From 

 the time of Caius we were intimately connected with the 

 Corporation of Surgeons in London, who sent us a scholar 

 receiving £40 a year for his maintenance and £3 a year to 

 provide himself with books. In order to qualify as a prac- 

 titioner in those days it was necessary to have attended three 

 dissections at which a body was opened, and " the physicians 

 present discoursed at random concerning the interior." 



The first separate professorship of Anatomy was founded 

 at Cambridge in the year 1707, but the immediate effect 

 of endowment appears to have been a cessation of all 

 interest in the subject. It was the time of the Resurrec- 

 tionists, however, and we read of the watchmen being 

 allowed to search in Emmanuel for a missing body. This 

 was illegal, be it remarked, and really an act of coercion, 

 as may be seen from the following tale. A giant once 

 died in Dublin, thereby exciting the desires of an ana- 

 tomical pirofessor and his students, to whom he said : 

 " Gentlemen, I understand that your feelings are excited 

 towards the seizure of this body, against which I must 

 certainly counsel you. But in case your zeal should 

 overcome your discretion, I will tell you the exact case of 

 the law, which is, that you may take the body, but that for 

 the removal of the least rag or shred of covering thereon 

 you may be hanged. Therefore, if you shmihl remove the 

 body, be careful that it is utterly unclothed." Needless 

 to say, that Professor was given the opportimity of 

 experimenting upon that giant. 



A more melancholy anecdote is associated with the 

 memory of our own Professor Collignon, who once invited 

 two friends to the dissection of a body, in which one of 

 them recognised the features of an acquaintance. It was 

 the body of Lawrence Steme, "whose final return to his 

 University formed a tragic ending to the sentimental 

 journey of his life." 



Professor Haviland made the first collection of anato- 

 mical specimens, while the first museum was foimded by 

 his successor Professor Clark, who raised it to be the first 

 in the world. We have entered upon a goodly heritage, 

 and, in the stimulating presence of Sir George Paget and 

 Sir George Humphry, may we not learn to penetrate 

 yet farther into those regions of knowledge where the 

 unknown still far exceeds the known ? 



ARTIFICIAL COLD. 



By Vaughan Cornish, B.Sc, F.C.S. 



WITHIN the last twelve years the production of 

 artificial cold has become an important in- 

 dustry. The principle of the methods 

 employed has long been known, but it is only 

 recently that the great practical difficulties 

 of the problem have been overcome. The requisite im- 

 pulse was given by the need of finding means for preserving 

 meat in a fresh condition during its passage from foreign 

 countries. For such purposes as this the freezing machines 

 of Carrd, w^hich still figure in the ordinary text-books on 

 Physics, are wholly inadequate. The problem was first 

 practically solved by Coleman by the construction of the 

 Bell-Coleman air machine, an apparatus so well thought 

 out and perfected that in its first trial a cargo of meat of 

 a value of £8,000 was transported across the Atlantic in a 

 perfectly fresh condition. From 1879 the industry of 



